A Flash Of Blue

You can usually find books on witchcraft, yes, but there’s also field guides on local foraging and wildlife, cookbooks, books that teach you how to craft and DIY, books about environmental protection and stewardship, books on how to use herbs medicinally, books about other religions, cultures, and spiritual practices. My favorite local library even has a seed swapping program and fantastic resources to research your own family history!

They may not be witches, but trust me, you have a LOT to learn from them.

the Baths have been closed since 1978; I genuinely have no idea why this became a point of discourse in the year of our lord 2026, but that's TikTok for you (or, more accurately, Instagram reels, because I will never view a single TikTok in my life, I am 33 and I cannot be doing it)

and now to the meatier point: yes, the Baths themselves are Roman, but the geo-thermal spring that forms the basis of the Baths was already a sacred site for the pre-Roman Celtic people who lived in the area. Archaeological evidence is pretty firm on this. A cool, groovy fact about the Romans is that a lot of their religion (and just their imperial tactics in general) was based on the principles of syncretism. In practice, this means incorporating beliefs, practices or deities from one religion into another. The Romans figured out that, rather than suppress all local religion, it was easier to allow the people in the areas that you've conquered to continue to worship their gods, with the caveat that you're going to really highlight the similarities between their gods and yours, and strongly suggest that their gods are really just versions of yours, because Roman superiority, or something. This is called interpretatio Romana for the Latin freaks out there. Before the Romans turned up, the springs at Bath were already a worship site for the Celtic goddess, Sulis. The Romans looked at Sulis, waved their arms about a bit, and said 'cool, so Minerva, yeah?' and built the Baths on that site, dedicated to Sulis-Minerva - a version of the Celtic Sulis which was syncretised with the Roman Minerva. The Celtic people got to keep a version of their god, the Romans got their Baths, and everyone was happy, damp, and warm. In theory, anyway. That's not really how imperialism works, but y'know.

Knight of Cups and Death

A tarot/oracle spread I made! I used this one for the new year, and got some interesting results. Amazingly, for the Companion card I pulled a card that signifies the Lady of Flowers, and one card that is "the Unicorn", so that could not be clearer, lol. This year I am working on "gamifying my life" and I want to bring some more play and RPG elements into my practice, which is what inspired this spread.

an Adventure - what is the journey or the adventure that you will go on?

a Divine Boon - a gift from your deity/spirit/the universe/etc. that will aid you on your journey

an Amulet of Empowerment - from where can you draw strength? Who or what is empowering you?

a Companion on your Journey - this can mean anything from a tarot card to a spirit to a deity. Who will accompany you and aid you on your quest?

a Spark of Hope in the Dark - we all know that quests can sometimes lead us to dark dungeons and to situations that can seem bleak. From where can you draw hope?

But it takes work to make connections. It takes willingness to cultivate community. It takes actively pruning to create the dashboard you want to log into. It's not just about waiting to be sent asks and be tagged in tag games. But about actually contributing to the creation aspect of a community by making the posts, creating the games, tagging people you don't know, sending asks to people you've never spoken to, etc.

but if I may add, witchblr is notoriously hostile to personal practices that deviate even slightly from the relative norms. the building of a community is absolutely a deliberate process and separate from building your own identity/fiefdom, but it sucks to do even the latter on here because someone swings by to be like "well ACTUALLY, that's wrong. you're doing it wrong." that's now how I read it in a book / how this other online community says it should be / as it came to me in a dream / etc.

I'm a little nothing know nobody blog and the last time I posted about a personal and foundational part of my practice I got a random anon complaining that my approach was "highly individual." like yeah. that's why it's a personal practice. at no point did I claim to be an authority on anything. that's the point. and like does it do any real harm to deal with that--not really but it is annoying and sometimes it is so personal that it discourages further sharing.